Mountain Zebra

Mountain Zebra National Park was proclaimed in 1937 in the Eastern Cape province, near Cradock, on the foothills of the Great Karoo plateau, and covers some 284 km².

Like Bontebok, it was born to save a single species. The Cape mountain zebra, a subspecies endemic to the mountains of southern South Africa and smaller and more narrowly striped than the savannah zebras, had been hunted down to a handful of animals. The park was established with a minimal founder population and came close to failure in its first decades, but the addition of new animals and habitat management allowed it to recover: today the species numbers several thousand individuals and this park remains its principal nucleus.

The landscape is mountain Karoo, with rocky plateaux, valleys and high-altitude grassland, and a characteristic succulent flora. In recent decades management has gone beyond the zebra and has reintroduced large carnivores and herbivores absent for more than a century, among them cheetah, lion and Cape buffalo, restoring part of the original ecological structure. The park also preserves San rock art in some shelters and a Karoo birdlife with numerous endemics.